Fun Easter Horrors!

Easter candy's a lot more fun than Halloween candy, as evidenced by the pastel-colored shells on Reese's peanut butter eggs, and that there seems to be a lot more good ideas for Easter candy than just the typical Halloween body parts, although I wonder how a put-your-own-Jesus-together chocolate body would sell. I do love the chocolate crosses, and I wonder if those would indeed ward off Satan if you hold it stiffly in front of you while shouting, "The power of Christ compels you! The power of Christ compels you!"

Or maybe Satan is a chocoholic, too, and then you've found a friend.

Nevertheless, I still want to see a zombie Easter bunny that eats children and then the eggs.

Something I've Wondered

My part-time job happens in the evening, compiling job listings for a freelance writing newsletter. Fortunately, there's a program on the admin website for this newsletter that grabs up all the potentially viable listings on Craigslist and puts it together so that all I have to do is click the "Filter Content" tab, and there they are, one after the other, for me to decide what to put in.

There has been one thing overall that I've wondered in all the time I've done this, at least since Craigslist began advertising for an online documentary series profiling those who use Craigslist to search for whatever. Take this, for example:

http://losangeles.craigslist.org/wst/wrg/2323553410.html

"Native Spanish-Speaking Social Media Writer - Pet Communities"

No disrespect intended toward the purpose of the listing. It's a job, and a job is always good, especially for whoever gets it. But under all that business, the person who has posted the listing clicked the option that indicates: "OK to contact me about appearing in CL documentary series"

Tell me: Why is it always the godawful boring listings on Craigslist that have this indicated?

I've Found My Path

I spent part of the evening sitting on the floor at PetSmart in Stevenson Ranch in front of the sealed-off bird cages, reading "Moonraker" by Ian Fleming, part of my goal to read all the James Bond novels ever published. Mom and Meridith were looking at the birds, deciding if there were any that could make a trio of finches for us. (We have Mr. Chips and Gizmo, but Mom's still on the fence about another third finch. She believes it would be easier this time with only two, just like with two dogs, and certainly when we move.)

I got to page 124 in that span of time, but when we reached the car to head home, I was reticent about hooking my reading light onto this paperback copy, not for fear of tearing, but because despite however many pages I hold to the front cover to create a strong-enough base for the reading light, there's always a droop. So I opened up "Out of the Cracker Barrel" by William Cahn, a hardcover book, ostensibly about the formation of the Nabisco Corporation, but moreso about its founder, Adolphus W. Green. There is such depth of research and clear-eyed observation here. Cahn just wants the facts to be known and it's fascinating to read, along with the historical photos, which are astonishing in their clarity. These are really good black-and-white photographs.

After passing page 22, I couldn't wait anymore. Not that I wait until the end to read an author's bio, but I wanted to know right away who William Cahn was and what else he had done with his life (I just found out that the Walter P. Reuther Library at Wayne State University in Detroit has a collection of his papers, and that he died in 1976). And I got this:

"William Cahn, a Dartmouth College graduate, is a public relations consultant and author of several successful books, including The Story of Pitney-Bowes; Einstein, A Pictorial Biography; The Laugh Makers, A Pictorial History of American Comedians; Harold Lloyd's World of Comedy; Good Night Mrs. Calabash: The Secret of Jimmy Durante. He is also the co-author of The Story of Writing.

Mr. Cahn is particularly interested in the documentary form which permits facts or photographs--or both--to re-create history, whether of a man, an era or an institution. "When the author is more moderator than judge, a work of history comes alive. This is what I have tried to do in Out of the Cracker Barrel."

Mr. Cahn lives with his wife and three children in New Haven, Connecticut."

With that bibliography, Cahn clearly followed his passions. That's what I intend to do. Besides my next book, I've got two novels in mind, one of which will be based upon Don Quixote, and I haven't even read it yet. I like the gist of it, though, and I've figured out an unattainable holy grail for my Quixote figure. However, I'm not sure if I have any more ideas for novels beyond those two, but being that I'm 27, and have probably only seen barely 1/8 of the world so far, there may be more in the decades to come.

I'm also planning two books about condiments (yes, condiments), one involving the packaging of condiments. I know there's enough historical material for both books. I just have to dig for it.

I have a folder on this computer and on my flash drive for plays, and I've got at least 50 ideas. But out of those, there are 2 or 3 that really excite me, and I'm sure I can develop the others over time, if indeed there's anything there.

I don't expect to get rich off any of this. I know a full-time job will be absolutely necessary, but since I know what I want to do, and I'm passionate about either option, that won't be a problem.

But all of this is exactly what I want to do with my life. Actually, it is my life. It's my hobbies, too. I don't feel like there's anything missing. I'm excited every day with what there is to do as a writer. There have been shit days with my words, and there will be more shit days, guaranteed, but at least there'll be something written on those days that can be improved upon on the good days. I've always leaned more toward the editing side of writing, and despite the hardships, I'm grateful every day for those five weeks that I was the interim editor of the weekend Escape section at The Signal. It taught me not only about the pressures involved in getting the words into print, but also how to streamline them, to make them even better for readers.

I get to read and write every day. I can't think of anything else I want. Well, more books to read, but that's a given.

The Moment That Will Continue to Inspire Me Through My Next Book

Just like with "My Thirty Years Backstairs at the White House," I started reading "Write It When I'm Gone" by esteemed journalist Thomas M. DeFrank last night, and finished it late this morning. It's a series of three decades of off-the-record interviews with Gerald R. Ford, who told DeFrank he could print all this after his death. And DeFrank did. And while it yielded very little information for my own book, it's a remarkable, highly informative journey through the feelings and historical moments of America's first and only unelected vice president and president, which Ford did not like, and wanted so badly to be elected in his own right, but came to terms with it in due time in his post-presidential life.

In my notes, I took down names to look up, titles of other books to read, political names to look up, such as James Callaghan of Britain, but I found a moment in here that speaks to exactly what I believe in my own life: No one is above me and no one is below me. And I hold the same belief for presidents. They may have access to nuclear launch codes, and their words reverberate throughout the world, but they are human. Their historical position does not change that.

Ford showed that many times, being a gentle man and a good man. DeFrank writes this in his epilogue:

"All of us in this crazy business of journalism retain instances that stick in our brains, moments that really weren't newsworthy or happened past deadline, so they never made it into print or onto the air, but are memorable nonetheless because they offer an unexpected window into the character and humanity of a public life.

For me, one of those iconic insights occurred just four days after Gerald Ford became president, as he was fiddling with the speech he would give to a joint session of Congress in less than two hours.

Suddenly, Ford looked up from his text and a postprandial martini.

"Howard, have you had dinner?" he asked Commander Howard Kerr, the naval aide who had delivered the final speech draft to Ford's modest home in the Virginia suburbs.

When Kerr said he hadn't eaten, the new president led the officer into the kitchen and plucked the remains of the new First Lady's tuna noodle casserole from the oven. Ford spooned out the entree onto a plate and put it on the kitchen table. "Have some dinner," he told Kerr. "I'm going to go work on the speech."

Mr. President, I can't dedicate this book to you when the time comes, but I see now that you are the reason for this book. Thank you.

Another Great Review for "What If They Lived?"

Felix Vasquez, Jr. and I wrote for Film Threat (http://www.filmthreat.com/) at the same time, but our contact was usually limited to occasional conversations, and it's been so long since we've talked at length on Facebook. Phil Hall, the co-author of "What If They Lived?", had a copy of the book sent to him and here is the result:

http://www.cinema-crazed.com/Cinemusings/whatiftheylived.htm

Research Has Begun for My Second Book

I've talked and talked about it, but talk isn't enough, as I've been pushed into beginning research for my second book, because of the impending handover of control of the Valencia library and the two other Santa Clarita branches from the County of Los Angeles to the City of Santa Clarita at the beginning of July. Without access to the County libraries, I would never have been able to write my share of "What If They Lived?"

Last night I started, and today I finished, "My Thirty Years Backstairs at the White House" by Lillian Rogers Park in collaboration with Frances Spatz Leighton, about Park's thirty years working as a seamstress and maid in the White House, first with her mother, Maggie, and then in her own right for the Hoover family. Very little in that book garnered anything I could use for my own book, but being that I love the 1979 miniseries that was made from it (and which I own on DVD), it was worth reading it again.

I have no publisher for this book this time, not that easily again like it was with "What If They Lived?", but I'm ready for the challenges in finding one.

Every Day a Little Death

Late last night, our white zebra finch, Ducky, died. Like Jules, who preceded him to the Rainbow Bridge, he was old, perhaps even older than Jules, by a few days or a few weeks. We can't be sure, but Ducky was getting older when we got him. We were told we could just have him, because that pet store owner didn't see anything in him anyway, thought that because of the generally dirty look he had and the beak that had been pecked by other finches to a misshapen form, what use was he?

Ducky was good for us, and in his new cage, his energy rose, and he would make sounds like an adding machine, that ringing sound, over and over.

The saddest thing last night was not that I saw his small, hunched figure at the bottom of the cage take his last breath. It was after I went to bed, and so I heard about it this morning, that Mr. Chips, who tweeted along with Ducky, and I guess was close to him.

Mom had taken off Ducky's cover completely and was doing the necessary work with Meridith, gathering Ducky's body (no burials allowed in our neighborhood) and putting it in a paper bag along with his favorite toys. Mr. Chips tweeted and when Mom pulled back part of his cover, she found him looking right at what was going on, with his beak on the bars of his cage. He never stopped looking. They were closer than I thought.

Ducky had been going for a long time. Gradually, he began to lose energy. His feet weren't carrying him the way they used to. And the adding machine noises faded. But, he was old. That's what happens. It's sad, though, because he was one of the stalwarts of our home. Not only a cute bird, but always there, always happy.

Right now, Mr. Chips and our new finch, Gizmo, are tweeting. Mr. Chips's tweets are more boisterous. Gizmo's tweets sound like a resolute cricket with a throat problem. But then, it's his second day here. He likes that everything in his cage is for him and he doesn't have to share anything with any other finch, like he did at PetSmart. Oh, and he's named Gizmo because he has the same coloring as his gremlin namesake. His was the easiest name to figure out.

It is quiet today, though. Just as much solemnity as it was when Jules died. It feels weird not having our adding machine anymore. But it is a cycle. Mom already has her eye on another finch, one that was in the same cage as Gizmo at PetSmart. I've no doubt that'll be part of our weekend errands.